GSSxn—your comment about perspective led me to realize that the artist’s inept handling of it makes it look like there’s a garter snake pushing directly forward from his gym shorts! If it’s not a garter snake, and really is Dick’s package, I no longer wonder why the damsel remains clothed nor doubt the horrible side effects of steroids.

To me, the sword hilt looks like a cross or X at a right angle to the sword and hilt. The two pieces of it are at right angles to each other, and are foreshortened because the sword is at an angle. And that’s one sword that will never get a chance to prick Dick.

I don’t think Dick’s lifting the guy, I suspect this was the GSS Admin’s way of marking the start of Putin’s World Cup by showing how him as goalie in a cheerful game of kick-the-dwarf played in a factory complex in Omsk.

Our old pal Paul DiFilippo has gotten past being nude (hurk) on the back cover of his books, and with no snake-loving babe on the front, but he’s got a gibberish title, a WTF subtitle, and font problems beyond belief:

The Oz guard has some weird green hula-hoop thing around his chest. Plus, his sword is bloodied… but Mr. Blade doesn’t seem to have a wound. Unless the guard chopped Blade’s right leg off at the thigh. It seems to end suspiciously at that rocky protuberance at bottom left.

@Tat: I know what spondulix means, but why he titled the book after a 150+ year old slang word, and then did… that… to the cover, will remain a mystery. I’ve never seen the word used in anything but 19th century novels, mostly set in rural/poor places. Doubt anyone under 50 has ever read it. And the subtitle, just… no.

1856, American English slang, “money, cash,” of unknown origin, said to be from Greek spondylikos, from spondylos, a seashell used as currency (the Greek word means literally “vertebra”). Used by Mark Twain and O. Henry and adopted into British English, where it survives despite having faded in American English.

Did you know that this series was a big hit with body builders? That’s why the covers showed off so much muscle.

The typical Richard Blade buyer would stride confidently into the newsagent’s / bookstore with bulging muscles barely contained by his suit and shirt, flexing his jaw muscles menacingly, dazzling the women around him as he casually tossed the latest Blade book onto the counter…